Haven't heard of Dragon's Lair?! Well, you play the heroic Dirk the Daring, a valiant knight on a quest to rescue the fair princess from the clutches of an evil dragon! Originally released in the summer of 1983, Dragon's Lair has solidified itself as a cultural icon in gaming.

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About This Game

Haven't heard of Dragon's Lair?! Well, you play the heroic Dirk the Daring, a valiant knight on a quest to rescue the fair princess from the clutches of an evil dragon! Originally released in the summer of 1983, Dragon's Lair has solidified itself as a cultural icon in gaming.

Control the actions of the daring adventurer, finding your way through the castle of a dark wizard, who has enchanted it with treacherous monsters and obstacles. In the mysterious caverns below the castle, your odyssey continues against the awesome forces that oppose your efforts to reach the dragon’s lair.

Dragon’s Lair is a fully animated classic arcade game from legendary animator Don Bluth. You’ll make your way through the castle and caverns below and wield your sword against some strange creatures. Beware of your foes, as they are numerous!

Dragon's Lair is an arcade classic and I was a huge fan as a kid. It was Dungeons and Dragons in the form of a video game cartoon. In the era of Pac-Man and Donkey Kong, it was amazing to my young eyes. I inserted countless quarters despite only surviving a minute in each game.

Nostalgia and a Steam sale compelled me to purchase the game and relive my childhood. I enjoyed it for a bit. The game play is simple and sometimes frustrating, but that is how the classic game is played.

Unfortunately, I don't consider this edition the definitive version of Dragon's Lair. I say this for several reasons:

- Scenes do not seem remastered, unless they mean... - Animation is zoomed & cropped for widescreen (my biggest criticism). - It may run in 720p, but the picture quality looks like an old VHS tape.- No native controller support or custom key bindings. - Imprecise button response for a game that requires precise input.- Simplistic and bland user interface. Limited Options.

Never-the-less, Dragon's Lair has a special place in my gamer heart and I am not unhappy to have it in Steam. I just wish it was a better version.

The first time you play it is vital that you turn off the move guide for the full challange of the game. half the game is just figuring out what the proper command is based on the screen. And often you have to pay close attention to figure out exactly what to do. Having the move guide on ruins this by simply telling you what button you're supposed to press. It's still somewhat fun with the move guide turned on but it really ruins the full experience.

This game has a quite a few things of which I'm not particularly fond. At the same time, however, it presents me with just enough that I don't want all the bad to seemingly outweigh the good. So, I'm going to list all it's good qualities and it's faults intermingled together, to try and paint a better picture than a block of negative text would.

- I don't like the menus. They're horrible and clunky, and I hate having to put my name in the high scores before it lets me leave. There are some horrendously bad scores in there that it forced me to input.- Don Bluth. Make of it what you will. (I see it as a positive)- The game doesn't go fullscreen for me. Since it's eighty percent about the visuals, having to watch it in a small window sucked out some of the fun.- Gameplay is simple, almost to a fault. Sometimes it's boringly easy, (I'm looking at you Lizard King!), but other times it flows well and the motions make sense for what's happening on screen.- Sometimes you die for next to no reason. Maybe you pushed the button too late, or didn't realize you should be doing anything, and then sometimes the game just hates you.- Every time you die in arcade, you're dropped into a different, random event. It helps keep away monotony.- This is not true for home mode. Home mode not only forces you to repeat the same section repeatedly until you beat it, it makes you repeat old stages constantly. Avoid home mode!-This game is crazy hard. I don't even know why there are two difficulty settings, I can't tell the difference when I play. -Sometimes you can feel that "Feed me your lunch money!" vibe that the more gimmicky arcade games give off. It's easy to die and you only get five lives. Infinite continues though!-The blood boiling difficulty can be avoided (kind of) by using the motion guide feature. I'd suggest it on your first go through, unless you really hate yourself.-Daphne the princess' voice acting is terrible. Thankfully she doesn't talk a whole lot, but when she does, my ears bleed.

As much as Dragon's Lair infuriates me, I can't bring myself to hate it. For all the frustration it's questionably timed movements and poor menus give me, it has an oddly charming appeal that makes me want to keep getting back on that mechanical horse and riding it straight into a wall.

C+I'd recommend it, but only during a sale.Avoid entirely if you don't like quick time events!

While I don't recommend this for reasons I'll list below, I do recommend this for those who originally played it in the 80s - 90s when the Don Bluth games originally came out. This was all nostalgia for me and after one play through I was satisfied and will most likely never pick it up again. The graphics look decent and the sound is good, but it's the gameplay that lacks depth to keep you interested in dying a million times more. Once you figure out the appropriate keys to press, if you didn't play it the easy way where the computer tells you what to press, then you'll find that this is a very short game.

Dragon's Lair, a 1980s Arcade game featuring a brave knight on a journey to save his princess. This game has it's pros and cons as any other game. I suppose if you're a big fan of arcade games, looking for some nostalgia from the 1980's, or simply just something short and fastpaced action/ adventure related then this is a game for you.If you on the contrary want an in-depth plot to your adventure then I'd be inclined to suggest you seek out another lair.Down below I'll try to mix the good with the bad, so you'll get an overal picture about the game.

* The menus. From a former design student's point of view they look horrible. Then again, it's from the 1980's so I didn't expect much. What did annoy me a bit though was that the game started lagging while in the menus option. In addition I'm not terribly fond of the whole "high scores are mandatory before you can play a new game"- thing. Though that's only if you decide to either quit the game in a fit of rage, or complete it. Otherwise you pretty much have infinite lives, and it doesn't take the game long to reload where you died the last time. (A feature I've grown to love about this game)

* The gameplay is so simple it's almost boring at times, but it's made up for by the short reaction time you have in most scenes. The animation flows well and the motions make sense for what's happening on screen most of the time. (Thinking of the princess monologue scene *cough* *cough*, something there doesn't sit right with me. I'll get back to that in a bit.)

* Sometimes you die for next to no reason. Especially if you pushed the button (a fraction of a second) too late, or didn't realize you should be doing anything, and maybe pushed the wrong button in the "crucial moment" *Point's at myself*Apparantly the game has several modes you can play. I've only played home mode so far, and I found it to be overly repetative. The game forces you to repeat the same section repeatedly until you beat it, and makes you repeat old stages constantly. The only slight difference separating some scenes form others being that they are mirrored.This game is difficult. I've only played on easy mode so far, but I'm concerned for when I'll try hard mode, as I've died so many times in this game it's embarassing.

- On a side note, I've seen a couple of reviews stating that the game does not work well with windows 8. That is not the case. I'm currently using windows 8 (or 8.1 to be exact), and the game has worked completely fine for me. If you try playing the game while your power option is checked to "power saver", then of course you'll have a problem playing it. If you set your computer to "high performance" and make sure that you don't have tons of other programs running at the same time, you shouldn't experience that much trouble.

* Now to Daphne, the damsel in distress... I don't even know where to start. This is the thing that has bothered me the most about this game. First off the princess' voice acting is terrible. And I have to agree with Puppet_kamon on this: "Thankfully she doesn't talk a whole lot, but when she does, my ears bleed." Second is the oversexulisation. The princess' outfit looks like it's taken right out of a strippers' closet. In addition, her over-the-top, unnecessary posing and gestures, while she is explaining how you defeat the dragon seems very odd to me. It looks like she is, or was ment to say something entirely different than the lines coming out of her mouth. In the end I was left with the impression that the princess was more of an object to be desired and obtained, more than anything else. I also wondered why the creators didn't make time-apropriate clothing for Daphne, as the knight's clothes/ armor looks like it's from the early middle ages, and hers from an other century entirely. (I have lots more to say bout this, but I think I'll leave it as is.)

* Animation-wise I have no complaint. I absolutely love most Don Bluth directed projects. The backgrounds are well made, and as stated before, the animation flows well. Otherwise I'd wish for a pause button in the game, as I'd like to view the surroundings a bit more.

As much as Dragon's Lair grinds my gears, I can't bring myself to hate it. It's an overall good game for it's time, and was groundbreaking in terms of going from pixel based games to animated ones. I bought it on sale, at 50% off, a completely ok price for a game like this. Though I would not recommend this at it's intended price. 4/10 points.

The game is a series of quick time events (UP, DOWN, LEFT, RIGHT or SPACE to use your sword) that progress an hilarious and smile-evoking nostalgia of 80s cartoons. Fail the QTE and you'll get to see an equally humorous death scene (though nothing gory, kids could play this without concern). The game takes about 30-40 minutes to complete but it's 40 minutes of entertainment that will make you smile at every second.The game is tough, with many of the QTEs offering little time to react, but if you're paying attention to the scene you'll be able to predict what to do as they're all rather fair.

I grabbed this on sale for about 50% off and I definitely feel I got my money's worth. It's a fun little gem to have in your library, especially if you can fondly recall 80s style cartoons.

As a 1980's child, this fully-animated game is a work of art visually. However, this game is very repetitive, as one could expect from a story game this old, and the key prompts you face are so quick you can barely keep track of the animations. At the price of $10, this game is an absolute ripoff.

Only buy it for a couple bucks or less...it's not worth the price you pay for it just for a very, very short dose of nostalgia.

The classic. Don Bluth animation made this thing incredible back in the day. Looses a little in translation; it's just not the same outside of the arcades of the early nineties. Still silly fun and a great nostalgia bomb.

Jacko Rating9/10The original Don Bluth masterpiece in all its former glory. If you have not heard of this game then come out from under your rock and be treated to the best looking game by far back in the 80s & 90s.This arcade classic is identical to the original laser disk version I used to throw money into when it was the Show Piece of all the arcade gaming rooms across the globe and it brings back fond memories of a miss spent youth.This is not about gameplay but rather takes you on a little adventure that you watch whilst following directional cues on screen.If like me you are an old school gamer then you will not be dissapointed so just buy and add to your collection for the occasional trip down memory lane. The youth of today will most likely not enjoy this and complain as they do about almost everything that isn't catered towards them but this game was not re released for kids, it is a collectors item for the real gamers who invented this gaming concept and supported it from the begining.Now please re release Space Ace so my old school Bluth collection is complete :)

Ive heard a lot of good thing about Dragons lair and If you are like me and you never had the chance to play this game in an arcade then here it is on steam! Its a tough game where you have to act fast or else you die, but the game is fun, the visuals are amazing! And I cant expect no less from Don Bluth!

In a nutshell: this release of Dragon's Lair is as perfect a version of the original laserdisc game from 1983 as you're likely ever to need, for better or worse.

Here's some longer thoughts on the game...

For anyone old enough to have frequented arcades in 1983 you'll undoubtedly remember the stir Dragon's Lair caused when it was released. I vividly recall seeing the local game with a second television monitor mounted atop the cabinet so that the crowds of people standing around could still see the game playing even from a distance, and when *anybody* made it to the end to face off with the dragon there's was a clamor of excitement. That was 30 years ago. Video games were so primitve back then that not only were characters limited in visual appeal and animation but gameplay too was barely more than a joystick moving in 4 directions and tapping a button. In that context Dragon's Lair soared above the rest with its genuine cartoon animation and even the stilted mash-buttons-and-learn-patterns gameplay wasn't too off putting.

In 2013 however Dragon's Lair has little to offer anyone who didn't fall in love with the game back then. The gameplay is only slightly more compelling than hitting the fast forward and skip buttons on your DVD player, and there's grade school fan fiction of King Arthur that's deeper than the plot put in motion here. The animation is very competent and Princess Daphne is a riot of laughter with her breathless exclamations and anatomy that should be poking holes in her costume. Thankfully there are options to make the game easier to play from on-screen prompts to just watching all the sequences play automatically... a much appreciated choice because it gets really tedious playing some sequences over and over because the timing isn't split-second accurate. There are "achievements" for playing the game in arcade hard mode (no audio or visual prompts) but that's strictly for the masochistic.

For the life of me I can't understand why the video files aren't in 1080p HD quality... it's 720p instead which makes me wonder if there's going to be yet another release somewhere down the line. I also would have liked to get a proper freeze frame mode in order to do animation analysis, and for some reason I wasn't able to take any screengrabs while playing. Very odd.

But, I did pay money for this and I definitely feel like I enjoyed my purchase.

Very good game, but a few things to keep in mind before buying this game:1. It's nothing but quick time events, so you're not really controlling where he goes, meaning no exploration2. This was originally an arcade game, so you can beat the game in half an hour3. There are different difficulties and the original arcade mode to play, so it has replayability.

Don't buy the game if you want a long game to fill your time.Buy the game if you want a quick thing to play, and enjoy classic animations and arcade games

Dragon's Lair is a high definition port of a 1980s Arcade game featuring a brave knight on a journey to save his princess.

I was a little tricked by this game, but maybe it was my fault. When I purchased Dragon's Lair, I thought it was HD remake, which perhaps provided extended gameplay or extra content, a fully fleshed out experience, based on the old 1980s Arcade game; but this is not the case, it is as advertised: the 1980s Arcade game.

So, I just wanted to throw that out there in case anyone was wondering. Now, to the game. It's kind of fun, though a little repetative. The game design is essentially based around memorising a path to the princess, and getting timings just right (press Left/Right/Up/Down at precise moments or you die and restart at a checkpoint). This, back in the 80s, I'm sure was a genius idea for getting tonnes of quarters out of kids playing the Arcade machine, but as a game I don't need to plug money in to continue, it's just a little droll.

I would recommend this game if you're looking for nostalgia. Maybe you played the game back in the day and never saw the end of it, or you were a Dragon's Lair champion and wanna relive your glory, you'll love it. But, if you're looking for a challenging and engaging title, with a story and interesting/creative gameplay, I would not recommend it.

This game relives the old Laserdisk Classic Arcade games - especially Dragon's Lair. This is just exactly like the original but whats more remarkable is the achievements and the options that is suited for newcomers who never played this game, before they were born.

I remember playing Dragon's Lair at my local arcade in the 80's, it was such an amazing idea that you could actually control a cartoon. Dirk suffered many deaths by my young hands and I never saved Princess Daphne.

Fast forward 30 years and what do my eyes behold? Dragon's Lair, instant purchase on Steam! After several mistakes, slow reactions, and memorization of key action sequences I can finally say that I defeated Singe and rescued the princess! Although tame for todays standards, I would have found the Daphne scenes quite risque as a child.

This is definately worth the small price tag, especially to those who have fond memories of plugging away many quarters at the arcade back in the day. The story is enjoyable and the game holds up well considering it's age.